Attachment K- SNAP Eligibility Go Live Reqs.pdf

FNS SNAP Eligibility System Go Live Requirements

* Required for UAT and Pilot ** Required for Pilot only

Program Related Areas Required Criteria General Standard, Metric or Target

Transmittal letter summarizes State’s decision to move forward *

An executive sponsor summarizing project status and justification for the decision to move forward or delay.

Training *

An assessment of the effectiveness of staff training based on UAT and then pilot and expectations for length of the learning curve. Average Case processing time per worker and office or per day/week/month (same, fewer, more) in legacy, during UAT with new system, and during pilot.

Method of comparison must also account for states who change workflow, from a case-based flow to a task-based flow.

A training plan that ensures users complete training “just in time” before the system is rolled out in each office.

A comprehensive description of Interim Business Processes (IBP), or workarounds, in place for pilot or “Go-Live” and assurance that these were incorporated into training.

Current Program Performance (timeliness, payment accuracy & volume of any document processing backlogs) **

Data indicating that the State is meeting Federal timeliness standards – 95% of cases processed by 7 or 30 days. If there are program performance deficiencies, explain how the current level of performance will be maintained or improved in accordance with the State’s Timeliness Corrective Action Plan.

State must provide a plan to mitigate timeliness and accuracy issues for period of training, UAT, pilot and rollout activities as these are the periods when staffing will be reduced and the learning curve will take place. The plan must demonstrate that the same number of cases can be processed with the same resources, in the same time. Staffing must be adequate to handle not just same caseload, but also any conversion/cleanup workload.

Program Related Areas Required Criteria General Standard, Metric or Target

Contingency Plan *

Provide a strategy should the State decide to stop testing, delay pilot, or delay rollout. Explain the strategy to roll back to the legacy system. The strategy should describe the period of time and circumstances after go live where the state would “fall back” to the legacy system.

Contingency plan includes failure/response plan for all key operational areas. Checkpoints are identified, and measurement method is known for each checkpoint during conversion and the “fall back” window. Decision makers are identified.

Escalation Plan ** State must develop and provide a plan to explain the process to escalate issues happening on the ground (pilot areas, service centers, etc.) to get technical support and inform impacted stakeholders, including FNS and advocate community.

Plan explains the complete feedback loop from point of initiation through the process, decision making, and back to the end users. Plan identifies who has the final decision on the issue.

Communication Plan * State must develop and provide a plan to explain how and when the stakeholders, public, State and local offices will be informed about the pilot and roll out of the new system and its impact in the short and long term.

System Integrity Review Tool (SIRT) utilized for pretesting of functional requirements. This should be completed prior to UAT.

The SIRT has been completed and comments provided back to FNS. Any outstanding issues for required program functionality identified by the tool have been updated prior to pilot.

Client notices ** The State must develop and provide a plan identifying the process for producing notices; how notices are generated, batched, displayed, printed, validated, maintained, etc…

The State must provide data indicating the percent of client notices in the pilot area that are accurate, including content, printing and mailing.

Reports ** The State must demonstrate that critical information necessary to monitor program compliance and basic program functioning is accurate and available on time.

A state’s new system must be able to produce specific reports in order to receive FNS’ approval. The following reports must be produced on demand accurately 95 percent of the time. These reports are subject to FNS review and verification to ensure accuracy and compliance with SNAP policy and regulations.

• SNAP Financial Status Report (SF-425/FNS-778)

• State Issuance and Participation Estimates (FNS-388)

• Project Area Data Format Report( FNS 388A)

• Timeliness Report –A state system must be able to produce an application processing timeliness report calculating the application processing timeliness rate. The application processing timeliness rate must be calculated in accordance with SNAP policy and regulations.

• Backlog Report –A state system must be able to produce a backlog report. The backlog report must include a breakdown of unworked and overdue initial applications, recertification applications, and interim reports (or change reports, as applicable) by 1-30 days, 31-60 days, 61-90 days, and 90+ days overdue.

• Notice Report –A state system must be able to produce a notice report for all notices sent by the State. The notice report must include total number of notices generated and sent(including paper notices and electronic notices when applicable) each day and be able to distinguish by type such as notice of expiration, notice of approval, periodic report notice, etc.

Daily Report –A state system must be able to produce a daily report reflecting State activity for that day. The report should have the capacity to break tasks down by staff member and office or by day/week/month. This daily report must include, at a minimum, total number of applications and recertifications received, number of initial applications and recertifications worked that day by status (pended, approved, denied, closed), total number of interviews conducted broken out by initial applications and recertifications, total number of periodic reports (or change reports, as applicable) received, number of periodic reports (or change reports as applicable) worked that day, number of case documents received, and number of case documents worked that day. All information pertaining to initial applications must be separated by expedited and regular.

Reports ** (continued) In addition to these specific reports, the system must contain the data elements necessary to produce the following reports, must demonstrate that these reports have been developed, and if not functioning at 95% accuracy, must have a specific timeline for issue/defect resolution and testing.

• Status of Claims Against Households Reports (FNS 209/209-A)

• Budget Summary Detailed Reports (FNS 366/366-B)

• SNAP Employment and Training Report (FNS 583)

• Issuance Reconciliation Report (FNS 46)

• Participation in Food Programs – By Race (FNS 101)

• Disaster Food Stamp Benefit Issuance Report (FNS 292-B)

Valid QC Sampling Process ** What is the State’s process? Can this be validated in Pilot?

QC process operates 100% normally, with payment accuracy results statistically comparable to pre-conversion results in the pilot area. (At least 2 months of valid QC samples have been successfully pulled from pilot cases. At least 1 month of sample has been reviewed for payment accuracy.)

Valid Sampling info

a. Does the sample pull from the right frame and include all SNAP beneficiaries, negative actions

(terminations, denials, suspensions for the specific month in question (effective)?

b. Does the sampling capture only SNAP beneficiaries for the specific month in question (specific)?

c. Does the sampling exclude most non-reviewable negative actions for the specific month in question?

Representative

a. Is the sampling a normal representative of the frame?

b. Are there no systemic or otherwise biases?

Reliable

a. Is the Universe preserved for at least 3 years?

b. Can the sampling be reproduced at any given time (audit, ME review)?

Valid QC Sampling Process ** (continued)

Reporting requirements:

a. Does the active sample list provide the information needed for QC to review the case; specifically, case number, name, and SNAP allotment for the sample month?

b. Does the negative sample list provide the information needed for QC to review the case;

specifically, case number, name, type of negative action and data of that action?

c. Are monthly reports of frame sizes and sample sizes, for active and negative frames, provided, along with the interval and random start points used?

RO/HQ QC read only access to Eligibility system *

Per SNAP-Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 Quality Control Procedural Clarifications and Federal Access to State Systems QC Policy Memo 17-01, RO and HQ staff have read-only user roles with access limited to SNAP information only.

Duplicate Issuances ** What is the State’s process to prove that there are not any duplicate issuances occurring?

What are the edits in the system to prevent duplicate issuances?

Black-out period ** Are there any times when all systems will be offline? If so, for how long and what is the plan for continuity of operations to ensure processing standards are met?

System Related Areas

Live Pilot ** Requirement to conduct a “live” production pilot in accordance with 7 CFR 277.18.

Statewide Implementation Provide the State’s plan for statewide implementation.

Testing Goals achieved and associated severity levels and definitions *

Statement of status based on State’s testing goals to include:

• The number of test scenarios completed

• The number of defects by severity level

• Definition of each severity level

Software Defect Status * Table of outstanding system defects by severity level, including any that would impact SNAP.

Defect tracking and prioritization in line with industry standards and identified in Test Plan. For example:

• No outstanding critical defects

• Minimal outstanding medium category defects with plans in place to fix

• All critical Business processes are working

• All test results recorded and approved

• UAT or Pilot test summary report documented and approved

Deferred Defects and Deferred Functionality *

Provide a list of deferred defects and any deferred functionality. Include a list of Interim Business Processes (IBP), or workarounds for FNS review that will be used after “Go-Live” until a fix is in place.

Any outstanding defect at “Go-Live” that materially impacts the SNAP eligibility process must have a successful tested IBP in place.

Data Conversion: Conversion for UAT and conversion before pilot. If rolled out incrementally, conversion for each wave. *

Describe the conversion process and include testing conversion rate and minimum necessary threshold for success.

Post-Conversion Clean-up An assessment of workload impact to determine the amount of cleanup necessary as part of implementation and timeframes set to accomplish. Describe the post conversion clean-up activities and the impact on workload/resources (i.e. percent of cases affected times the average amount of time to clean-up the data per case).

System Related Areas

Total cases proposed and total cases processed during pilot **

Pilot caseload = _____percent of statewide caseload.

Pilot caseload should replicate statewide diversity of cases. Provide statistics identifying diversity of case types across programs. Describe the process which ensures the pilot reaches a state of routine operation with the full caseload in the pilot area.

Site Readiness * Provide Site Readiness criteria and completion checklist or statement of validation assuring readiness.

Examples of site readiness could include:

All locations: software (i.e. browser),wiring completed; high speed internet proven at full user volume and velocity with no outages; hardware set-up validated at all workstations; scanning equipment at full volume, client information materials distributed/posted; user “quick reference” guides at all workstations; help desk phone number at all workstations, etc.

System Performance and Capacity Testing **

Identify the strategy for addressing any degradation to performance as the system moves from UAT through Statewide rollout. Provide system performance and user response time validation process and results.

Interface Testing and Acceptance (Interface validation report) **

Interface validation report. All “trading partners” attest that interfaces are working successfully, including live, real-time data transfers. In addition, a letter from the EBT processor that all testing and validation of interfaces is complete with no known issues.

System Security fully tested ** System security fully tested according to State Security Plan and any Federal regulations that apply.

QA/IV&V or other system status ratings *

The QA and/or IV&V vendor (or state equivalent) report/ratings must be submitted and will be used in the FNS go/no-go decision process.